What Dan Marino Loves About This Miami Dolphins Team

December 21, 2009|Posted by Joe Rose on December 21, 2009 03:07 PM

Dan Marino praised Tony Sparano's Miami Dolphins for never giving up.

"You know what I love about this football team -- they play hard all the time," Marino said during the 'Dan Marino Show,' which airs every Monday morning on WQAM during the NFL season. "It's really amazing. They're mentally tough. To come from behind like that, especially on the road shows a lot about this team. Tennessee is one fo the better teams in the AFC, and they went in there and had a good chance to win because of their resiliency."

Something else that was obvious against Tennessee: Teams continue to go after Vontae Davis, who is not in bad position on a lot of these touchdowns but he's giving up a lot of big plays.

Marino said sometimes going against a top receiver is just a tough matchup for any rookie.

"He's been put in some tough situations where he's playing head-up man [defense]," Marino said. "That's tough. The only thing I would say is he needs to locate the ball better in the air. But playing one-on-one against some of the best receivers in the league is tough."

Nat Moore told me on the bus last night that you just have to give Vince Young credit. He made some tough throws that were right on the money.

Marino surprisingly defended the controversial personal-foul call against Greg Camarillo that moved the Titans within field-goal range after Chad Henne's interception in overtime. I thought it shouldn't have been called as he didn't go in with his helmet. He just wanted to make sure the guy was down.

"That was a penalty," Marino said. "You can't do that when a guy gives himself up. I could see why they called the penalty. I think he was trying to knock the ball out."

At least Marino wasn't being a homer today. Yes, I say that with a smile.